Kirk Hammett on stage with Anthrax at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco

Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett is probably one of the most well known heavy metal guitarists of all time. Anthrax is a band that are recognised as one of the great pioneers of the genre. So when these two monstrous forces collided on Thursday (28th of March 2013) at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco, it was certainly a spectacle to behold. And better yet we have footage of Kirk Hammett strutting his stuff alongside his fellow rock legends from Anthrax. This is the second awesome guest appearance we’ve talked about this week on our blog. Also both at the same venue. Very unfair. I’ll go make sad faces in a corner and cry because I don’t live nearby. Anyway I digress, Kirk’s appearance delivered a thunderous cover performance of AC/DC’s classic rock anthem “TNT” which is Anthrax’s newly released “Anthems” EP. You can watch the fan-filmed video footage of Kirk and Anthrax below.

Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante Spoke to Music Radar recently, where he talked about the band’s recent cover version of AC/DC’s classic track “TNT” “This was Joey’s [Belladonna, vocals] track.” He said “We already had ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ recorded, but he wanted ‘TNT’. I can see why: his voice totally lends itself to this track.” He said smiling.

“AC/DC is probably one of the greatest bands ever.” Claimed Benante enthusiastically “They came in with a certain sound, and they’ll end with that same exact sound. They never altered it; they just stayed true to what they were. To me, that’s an honest-to-goodness rock ‘n’ roll band.”

Benante continued “It would have been obvious to pick something off of ‘Highway To Hell’ or ‘Back In Black’, and so we didn’t. [laughs]” Benante then went on to talk about his dedication to keeping the track as faithful to the original as possible “I studied every Phil Rudd lick, and I did not go overboard with anything. I played exactly what he played on ‘TNT’. You can’t do a fast drum fill on the song — it’ll stand out as being out of place. I laid it down, pulled it back, and that was that.”

Anthrax’s long-awaited, eight-track EP “Anthems”, pays tribute to some of the band’s favorite acts from the 1970s. The EP sold relatively well at around 8,500 copies in the United States, during its first week which went on to debut at 52nd on The Billboard 200 chart.

Anthrax’s latest full-length offering, entitled “Worship Music”, sold a massive (by today’s standards) 28,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at No. 12. Which out performed their last record by by almost 3 times the amount of units sold and charted over 100 places higher. A big positive move for the band.

Machine Head are a long time favourite of Soul Sanctuary, but a recent surprise appearance from the guitarist of the big MH at a Steel Panther concert was very surprising to say the least. But a pleasant surprise nonetheless. According to a report from Blabbermouth.

Machine Head guitarist Phil Demmel, recently shared the stage and spotlight with Steel Panther, the LA based 80’s hairstyle glam-rock parody band. He stepped up to the plate at San Francisco, California’s Regency Ballroom on the 23rd of March to help perform two of Steel Panther’s prankster anthems (songs): “Turn Out The Lights” and “Asian Hooker”. Luckily for us this rare spectacle was witnessed by someone with the good sense to whip out his camera and get filming, The Fan-filmed video footage of Phil Demmel appearance on stage with Steel Panther can be seen below.

On the 13th of April Steel Panther kicks of their interestingly named S.T.D. (Spreading The Disease) Tour, The tour is set over 20 dates starting in Orlando, Florida at WJRR’s Earthday Birthday.

Lexxi Foxx was quoted as saying “What better way to kick off the S.T.D. tour than with a concert to celebrate the Earth’s birthday”.

Steel Panther with Machine Head!

We here at Soul Sanctuary love random guest appearances like this, and really they should happen more often. It’s always the unusually events at live shows that you will remember the most. If a band plays exactly like a CD you might as well have stayed at home and listened to the CD, the whole point of a live show is for the experience, so we take our hats off to Machine Head Guitarist, Phil Demmel and the rest of the Steel Panther crew because this shit is what rock n roll is all about.

Five Finger Death Punch (5FDP) have released new studio footage for their time in Las Vegas’ The Hideout Recording Studio where they are currently working on their fourth full length studio album due to be released in the summer of this year. Overseeing the recording sessions once is Kevin Churko, a Canadian musician, record producer, songwriter, sound engineer and The Hideout’s owner. Kevin Churko is known for his work with artist such as Ozzy Osbourne and In This Moment amongst many others.

This very short video clip of Ivan Moody from Five Finger Death Punch highlighted in a dim red light doing a screaming vocal take, can be see below:

As an added bonus we have included a YouTube clip containing a small sample of the new 5FDP track “Here To Die”, which has been taken from the band’s forthcoming fourth album. Get your teeth into it with the YouTube clip below:

Five Finger Death Punch have been making waves across the world of popular metal having sold more than half a million copies of each of their first three studio releases, can they do a forth? Or better still can they up the ante and sell over a million? It certainly seems to be a rare feat in today’s world of Metal Music. In fact Music in General. I say more power to them. If you’re not already a Five Finger Death Punch fan, why the fuck not? Because they write some killer tracks! Go check them out.

Trollfest “True Norwegian Balkan metallers” have decided to go all out pop mad with this strangely infectious cover of Britney Spears’ Toxic. The video stars the band on a black curtain background with stumpy legs being puppeteered from behind them. It is certainly a strange sight to behold, but it certainly fits the mood of the cover songs silliness. Watching the drummers legs go double pedal mad is a big highlight for me. I literally LOL’d. The track is a promotional video for Trollfest’s upcoming 12-inch picture vinyl “A Decade Of Drekkadence”, which the band is releasing in celebration of its 10th anniversary.

Check out the video below:

“A Decade Of Drekkadence” features 16 tracks which include a completely new song, three acoustic versions of Trollfest’s signature tracks recorded during a live Trollfest performance at Metalcamp in 2012. Three covers, two B-sides and Trollfest’s never previously released demo from 2004, a piece that will no doubt please many hardcore Trollfest fans. Each Picture disc includes information on how to go about obtaining an MP3 format version of the “A Decade Of Drekkadence” album. Obviously for those who only wish to own the records as a collectors item, and would rather listen to the music on modern technology. Admittedly you wouldn’t want to have to leave the house with a vinyl record player strapped to your backside. If you could even figure out how to build a portable battery pack for it.

Swedish cartoonist Jonas Darnell and designer Terje Johnsen, have gone all out for the designs of Trollfest’s new picture disc, which includes illustrations of various characters created by Darnell from the Trollfest’s album releases over the last 10 years. Making appearences are the iconic metal duck from the “Villanden” album and the hellhound from the track “Helvetes Hunden Garm” a big fan favourite at Trollfest’s live shows.

“A Decade Of Drekkadence” will appear in time for the band’s first North American tour in March, when they will hit the road with Enisferum, TYR, Heidvolk and Helsott for the Paganfest Mexican, American and Canadian tour.

Chuck Norris – Shaves his beard, no third fist found

Behold a photo you thought you would never see in your life time. Chuck Norris has lopped off his ginger face pubes, revealing the wrinkly old man beneath and it isn’t a pretty sight (Also there is no third fist to be found as once claimed by many a Chuck Norris fan). Oh please Chuck grow it back, grow it back now! This recent shot of Chuck was published by Den of Geek. He looks so odd, Certainly not the sort of bad ass dude that we all know as the legend of Chuck Norris. I can only imagine now there is bound to be a relentless stream of beardless Chuck Norris jokes on the horizon. Do you have an beardless Chuck Norris jokes? Let us know in the comments below.

So today is the 12th anniversary of the death of Douglas Adams, one of my favourite comedy authors of all time. Famous for works such as the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy show, before being developed into the infamous five book “trilogy”. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy sold more than 15 million copies during his lifetime, and was adapted into many formats which include a short lived BBC TV series, a movie (Which does the book almost no justice at all) and various comic book adaptations, one of which my father and renowned comic artist Ian Gibson was commissioned to draw.

After leaving university, Adams moved back to the city of London. He was determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. During the early part of Adams career he struggled to make ends meet even after appearing in Monty Python’s Flying Circus and working at BBC 2 radio. To keep himself afloat he took a series of odd jobs, some of which included work as a hospital porter, barn builder and chicken shed cleaner. He even found work as a bodyguard for the Qatari family, a family of rich oil barons.

Adams continued to write, with little success of them being accepted for publication. His work was few and far between. He saw improvements in his opportunities, but they were mostly short-lived.

In 1977 Adams pitched The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to BBC Radio 4. According to Adams, the idea for the title The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy occurred to him while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, gazing at the stars, though he joked that the BBC would instead claim it was Spain “probably because it’s easier to spell”.

Douglas died on the 11th May, 2001, aged just 49. The cause of death was a fatal cardiac arrest which took place during his regular workout at a private gym in California. He was unaware he had been suffered from a gradual narrowing of the coronary arteries, which lead to his tragic and untimely death. Douglas had been due to deliver the commencement address at Harvey Mudd College just two days later. Adams funeral took place on the 16th of May 2001.

In 2011, over 3,000 people took part in a public vote to choose the subjects of People’s Plaques in Islington. Adams received 489 votes. As a result, it was decided to erect a plaque in Adams’s honour, on a date yet to be announced.

Douglas Adams was a true master of the written word, his talent was lost far too young. If you haven’t read any of his work, I highly recommend picking up one of his books.

Here is a cool video of Douglas Adams giving a presentation in his home town.

It’s the end of the world as we know it

It wouldn’t be an exaggerated claim to say that Mötley Crüe has for better or worse been one of the most influential/successful rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time. That why we bring you the word straight from the horse’s mouth that Mötley Crüe are soon to be no more. According to sources at TheMusic.com.au an interview with Nikki Sixx, has revealed in detail, Mötley Crüe’s plans to go out with a bang.

Nikki Sixx, Mötley Crüe’s infamous bass player stated “I wanna finish our movie [The Dirt: Confessions Of The World’s Most Notorious Rock Band] and put out a new album,” Nikki brought up mention of a soundtrack in the works and “a farewell tour”. “We’ll be back in Australia and, ah, that’ll be it, I can honourably say, We did it our way and we’re never coming back.”

Nikki was extremely adamant about the band’s future spilt and farewell tour. He accentuated that the split will mark the end of the band’s 30 year career permanently and he has no interest in any sort of reunion later down the line. This will be the final nail in the coffin for Mötley Crüe.

Not gonna beat a dead horse

Nikki Sixx continued “It’s important that when you do a farewell tour that people understand that when you put a bullet in the back of the horse’s head, and it goes down, it’s not a plastic bullet it’s a fucking shotgun blast.” The bassist continued to describe in graphic detail the execution of the four-legged farm-yard animal before saying, “It’s the only way I can look at myself in the mirror and do a farewell tour. That’s it. So when we take our final bow, it’s IT. I will cry. I cry thinking about it.” He expressed.

For more than 30 years, the hell hounds of Mötley Crüe have been creating musical chaos for their millions of fans around the globe, many of whom will certainly be saddened by the news of the final curtain coming to a close on such an illustrious career for these musical giants. In 2004 the original Mötley Crüe line-up reunited after a long line of line-up changes and an age of turbulence among the band members, upon announcing the Carnival Of Sins reunion tour in December of the same year.

Since then, the band released their ninth album [Saints Of Los Angeles] in 2008, backed by relentless touring including and their current co-headline tour with glam rock legends KISS.

There will be no sequel

Mr. Sixx went on to describe his feelings “So it’s very emotional and I just think it’s important that we finish what we started and then, you know, it will be whatever it will be. It could be beautiful. It could be a beautiful ending! [Like] When you go and see a great movie.”

Nikki concluded with the analogy “I’ll leave you with this: when you go and see a great fucking movie and it ends and you go, ‘Fuck!’ like, you walk out and you go, ‘That was amazing! That blew my mind!’ It’s not like, ‘That blew my mind and, um, maybe there’ll be a sequel to it’.”

So will this finally be it for the almighty Mötley Crüe? It seems that it is the case. Nikki at least seems to believe so. Who are we to argue with him? So our advise to any Mötley Crüe fans out there, if you haven’t seen them live, take this chance to do it, because it’s the last chance you’re ever going get. I can imagine that those tickets are going sell like hot cakes during a famine. So tell us: are you sad about the news that Mötley Crüe are soon to end their career? leave a comment down below and let us know your thoughts, good or bad.